2008/10/23 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com:
David Gerard wrote:
If only the economic downturn would eliminate the market for Andrew Keen.
- d.
Amen, brother. +1
Yours,
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
I think not. The media are always going to be looking for someone who can be relied on to produce an anti wikipedia statement when they require one. From our POV we could do a lot worse than Andrew Keen. Consider
1)The guy has a fair bit of integrity. He doesn't lie about what wikipedia is so we don't have to spend large amounts of effort fighting off say Conservapedia style distortion.
2)His attacks are fairly broad meaning that they are likely to have little appeal to anyone likely to become a wikipedia editor. It also limits his ability to build up much of a following even within the reflexively anti wikipedia groups.
3)He is smart enough to realise that his arguments mean that he has to maintain a certain degree of standards himself. There is a limit to how much he can go after wikipedia on more gossipy issues.
Sure he's no walking strawman Jack Thompson but as a talking head for wikipedia opposition go we could do a lot worse.